


One Night, and Sunrise

by little_abyss



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Having Feelings is Hard, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Break Up, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 20:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3663105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_abyss/pseuds/little_abyss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A night out with the girls at Skyhold gets a little dramatic when Adie runs into an old boyfriend and his new... whatever.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	One Night, and Sunrise

"Adie. _Adie._ INK!”

 _Fuck sakes_ she thinks, and slips her finger under the white ear-bud.  The Clash’s _Guns of Brixton_ blares out at her, tinny and distorted.  Adie turns her head and asks, “What?”

“Come on.  You’ve been sat starin’ at that computer all day, cookie-baby.  Time to get up, get liquored and get dancin’.”

“Sez, I’d love to, but I can’t.  I got work to finish.”

“Not on a Saturday night you don’t!  C’mon, bay-beh.”  She grabs Ink, Adie, whatever, underneath the armpits and hauls on her.  Adie laughs and says, “Alright, alright!  You’ll give yourself a hernia, you big dork.”  She rises, taller than Sera by head and shoulders and grins down at her.  “Are we meeting Cass too, or is it just us?  ‘Cause, if it’s just us…” she tickles Sera under her chin and grins lopsidedly when the smaller woman catches her hand, bites the thumb gently and guffaws around it, “I got other things I might wanna do than dancing.”

“Yeah, you wanna dance alright.  Horizontal dancing.”

“So eighties.  That sounds like something out of _The Breakfast Club_.”

Sera pistons her arms and pushes her head out and back in a vague interpretation of one of the dances from the very end of the movie.  Adie laughs, then Sera says, “Yeah well, I’m not the kid listening to seventies music, am I?”

“Maker, Sez, the seventies were the golden age…”

“Golden age of shite, maybe…”

“Give me strength...! Zeppelin!  Iggy!   _Bowie!_ ”

“KISS! Hot Chocolate! Debbie Boone!... and come on, you can’t even say Bowie made it all the way through the decade without making one crap song…”

Adie holds up her hand before Sera can say something she’ll regret.  “Hey.  Don’t be hating on David Bowie.  Man’s a rock legend.”

Sera rolls her eyes up and flaps her hands out to the side, leaping about like she’s possessed, and singing out of key, “Dance, magic dance!  Jump, magic jump!”

Adie groans, “That was the eighties, ya biscuit.  And the pants make up for the song.”

“Oooh, Adie’s gotta crussshhhh.”  Sera pulls out the sibilant end of the word, turns it into filth.  “Anyway, come on, you gotta get changed.  Said to Lily we’d meet her at Skyhold.”

Adie sneers and says, “Eh, Sez, I hate that place.  It’s only wankers that go there”

“Is not!  They play bloody lovely music, and the drinks are cheaper than a nug chop.  You’re just worried that a certain someone who used to like you will be there.” She snorts derisively, and says, “You big wimp.”

Adie is silent for a moment, and then looks down into Sera’s face to say, “Yeah.  I’m a big wimp.  Will you get me drunk and save me, Scary Serrie?”

“Only if you’ll take me home afterward.”  Sera grabs her by the neck and leaps into her arms, kissing her all over her face.  Adie grins and kisses back.

 

Adie changes quickly out of her pajamas and puts on a plain white t-shirt and tight navy pants.  As she is pulling on her dark turquoise fake-alligator-skin boots, Sera comes flouncing into the living room in white knee-high socks and a fuzzy cheetah-print coat and twirls around. She pulls the collar of her furry jacket up over the lower half of her face and looks suggestively at Adie before purring, “You like?”

“Oh hell yeah, I like.”  Adie is all eyes, then gestures for her to turn around again.  She notes that she can’t see any hot-pants or even the bottom of a short skirt under the hem of the coat, even though the coat just covers Sera’s ass.  She rises, the heels on her boots lending even more height to her already statuesque frame.  Grinning now, goes to Sera and draws her hands delicately over the other woman’s clavicle, pulling the fabric over her shoulders, revealing silvery straps.  Sera giggles, clutching the front of the coat together, but not before Adie has realised what’s underneath.  “Is that…”

“Yup!  Pretty neat, eh?”

“It’s a swimsuit, Sez.”  Adie frowns slightly, trying to squash a momentary jealousy; she could never pull off half the shit that Sera gets away with, fashion-wise.  “Will they even let you in like that?”

“Can’t imagine why not.”  Sera scowls, then airly comments, “Pfft, you’d think they were sticks-up-the-bum nobility or something.  Still,”  she grins, “I got my secret weapons.”

“Er… you’re not bringing…”

Sera gives her trademark staccato cackle, and pulls away the quicksilver fabric of the swimsuit to reveal a breast.  She hangs her tongue out for a moment, and then, her voice screechy with barely suppressed mirth, yells, “Yeah!  Barbs on both sides of this arrow!”

Adie grins and groans at the same time, and tells her “Sera, Maker… you are too much.”

“Which is just enough, yeah, babycakes?”

“Just enough for me.”

 

Skyhold is heaving already when they arrive, though the night is only just beginning.  Due to its tendency to leak in heavy rain, the club is usually abandoned on a night like this, chill winds howling through the holes in the roof, rain almost certainly on the cards.  Rumour has it that it was purchased by one of the legends of the late-80’s club scene, a mysterious guy who called himself Solas, reputed to have left for somewhere in Eastern Rivain or Antiva City when the scene topped out here.  Clearly nothing has ever been done with it; still, it seems a good crowd, and Adie is a little disappointed that she has bought her car - though it’s an insurance policy against Sera helping her into too much mischief.  The Nonsens remix of M.I.A’s _Bad Girls_ is thumping from the speakers when they arrive, undercut with the tonal indications of Beyoncé’s _Flawless_.  Adie shakes her head at Sera, who immediately starts trying to pull her out onto the dancefloor. “Not my scene!” she shouts into Sera’s ear, “Going to get drinks!”  Sera sneers and shrugs, then twirls backwards, mouthing the lyrics, “Bow down, bitches!”  Adie watches as her silver-shod butt bounces away, down the few steps, blonde hair flapping around her ears.  As Adie continues to watch her, Sera begins to dance, seeming chaotic, almost against the rhythm, but Adie sees a kind of wild beauty in each twist and step.  Her mouth pulls into a grin when she sees Sera kick a random in the shin for daring to try and get in her space, then Adie turns toward the bar.

 

===

 

“Hey, Ink.”

“Oh, hey, Lily!”  She hugs the shorter woman, then playfully tries to tug the hood on her purple jacket back.  The music is a little quieter here, but only a little.  Lily holds it in place with both hands and scrunches her lips together, then moans, “Don’t, please.  My hair is crazy.”

“Your hair is always crazy, girl.  Crazy-good, that is.”  Adie pauses a brief moment to take in the rest of Lily’s outfit; grey blue side-slashed dress with the purple short-sleeved jacket over it, teal coloured vinyl tights and black motorcycle boots.  She sighs again, and that jealousy is back; all her friends seem to make better fashion choices than she is capable of.  Lily smiles at her and then asks, “Where’s your lady love?”

Adie raises her hands, the lightning bolts tattooed along her knuckles flailing as she wiggles them in a mimicry of Sera’s dancing style, and Lily laughs as Adie says, “Owning the dance floor.  Probably surrounded by groupies by now.”

Lily giggles and nods, then her voice goes serious as she asks, “Have you seen the boys yet?”

“Awww, Maker.”  Adie swallows, her stomach pitching a little, and she asks, “Is… ah…”

“Yeah.  He is.  But I think he might be a bit distracted.”  Lily smiles, quite craftily, and says, “There’s a new boy with them.”

“Yeah?” Adie doesn’t really care, but she is relieved enough that Cullen might be distracted enough by someone else that he’ll forget to be weird and distant with her.  Their break up wasn’t good, and he took it especially hard when she got together with Sera.  But their social circles are so enmeshed that Adie has been at pains not to frost him, even though he’s been volatile with her, especially lately.  She sighs, then says, “This new boy.  Is he cuter than me?”

“Oh yes.”  Lily replies without hesitation, then laughs at Adie’s crestfallen expression, adding, “Ink, you’re a beautiful woman, but this guy… he’s really quite magical.  I think Cullen is quite…”  she gazes into the middle distance for a moment, thinking of the right word, and then decides on “...enraptured.”

“Oh.”  Adie frowns, trying to remember if Cullen had ever told her he was interested in men.  Then she thinks to herself, hey, if Cullen’s getting a little rapturous, then that’s a good thing.  She smiles at Lily, who smiles back at her and then waves madly over Adie’s shoulder and screams, “Jo-jo!”

 

Lily and Jo-jo collide in a giggly embrace, hopping up and down like they haven’t seen each other in years.  Then they break, grinning at each other, only to hug again, laughing.  “You look amazing!” Lily squeals, and Jo-jo asks, all astonishment, “You mean you haven’t seen this one before?” She leans back from Lily a little, looking down at herself, the bright yellow and blue body-con dress contrasting spectacularly with her brown skin, dark hair and eyes.  “I picked it up in Starkhaven, when we went for derby.”

“She took me… shopping.” Cassandra shudders at Lily, raises her eyebrow, and smiles at Adie.  “Hi, Ink.” She winces slightly and rubs her hip absentmindedly, eyeing the bar.  “Cassie-baby.  How you doin’?”

Cass grins and says, “Good. Got a wicked bruise though.  Wanna see?”

She pulls down the waist of her dark jeans a little, exposing the pale skin of her hip and the brilliant purple, yellow and green of a half-healed bruise.  “That’s from derby?  Hell.”  Adie has been a bit fascinated by roller derby for ages, but can’t skate for shit, despite Cass attempting valiantly to teach her.  Cassandra nods, then pushes her chin toward the bar.  Adie remembers that that’s what she’s supposed to be doing, and approaches the bartender.  She is waiting to pay when Cass says, from behind her, “Cullen’s been a bit better.”

Adie sighs, and says, “Really?  ‘Cause you could have fooled me.”

Cass pushes closer to her at the bar and looks up at her, frowning seriously.  “Yeah.  I thought you of all people would be a little more tolerant of what he’s going through…”

“Ugh, Cass, let’s not, eh?  He’s going through a lot of shit of his own devising; I know I let things get too serious between us, but I tried really hard not to break his heart or anything…”

“What?”  The look on Cassandra’s face is genuinely puzzled, and she says, inspiration dawning, “Oh… no, this isn’t about you two!  Maker, anyone could see that was doomed to failure.  No, I mean, his withdrawal isn’t as bad, seems like he’s through the worst of it…”

“With… withdrawal?”  Now it’s Adie’s turn to be puzzled, and Cass frowns at her, saying, “Yeah.  From lyrium.”  Her mouth opens a bit, and her eyes widen.  “You mean… you didn’t know?”

“No, I didn’t fuckin’ know!  How was I supposed to know?  How… why…”  Her stomach pitches suddenly with guilt, remembering the times they had used together; she had never thought that Cullen might be addicted to the stuff, because she only ever used recreationally.  Her mind helpfully pushes a memory of her saying to Cullen that it made her feel more powerful somehow and his vague, blissed-out nod in reply.  She grits her teeth against the guilt, and tries to arrange her thoughts, glaring at Cassandra, “Why did he tell you and not me?”

Cassandra shrugs, a look of consternation on her face, “We’ve known each other for ages.  But Cullen’s pretty private about that kind of thing.  I just… I thought he would have told you himself.”  She shrugs again, and says, rather too philosophically for Adie’s liking, “People are strange, I guess.”

“Yeah.” Adie collects her drink and Sera’s, and says, “See you ‘round, Cass.”

 

===

 

Later, so much later.  They have been watching the crush, smiling when they recognise a face lost to the music.  Ric saunters past, and Adie drops to her knees to hear him better, then laughs at the story he tells her.  Sera smiles slightly at him, but is intent on the crowd.  Blackwall waves to them, gesturing with one hand at Cole, who is only standing because of Blackwall’s arm under his.  Blackwall looks at Adie, makes a shrug and mouths, “Tell Jo-jo?”, then points at Cole again, and mimes a steering wheel.  Adie flaps her hand at him and gives him a thumbs up.  There have been times enough where they’ve all taken Cole back to his house; he seems almost incapable of looking after himself, but none of them mind too much.  The kid is a sweetheart, after all.  Vivi flies by, and Adie quickly turns to Sera, leaning down to put her head into the other woman’s neck, hoping that the bossy bitch won’t see her.  Sera giggles and yells into Adie’s ear, “You are such a fuckin’ wimp!”

 

After so much time on the sidelines, Sera is becoming jittery under Adie’s arm.  She never stops moving, even when there is a tiny pause in the music when a new DJ comes up.  Adie can see him over the crowd from where they are standing, a huge guy, his headphones encircling his head like horns.  He nods slowly, mixing Deadmau5’s Raise your Weapon and Death is a Girl by the Mini Mansions like it’s nothing unusual, the crowd peaking under his choices, the crush becoming tighter.  Even Adie feels like she could dance, and she grins down at Sera, who yells, “Come on then!”  They move out, Sera laughing and dragging on Adie’s hand, hips swinging, drink held aloft.  She pulls Adie closer to her when they reach the middle of the floor, eyes alight with mischief.  Their bodies meet, and Adie can feel the heat pouring off Sera through the thin cloth of her swimsuit.  “Shit,” she breathes into the top of Sera’s head, as Sera runs her hands up Adie’s arms, along the tattoos of sigils and runes, Ancient Tevene script held within circles and glyphs.  Shit she thinks as Sera begins to writhe, there in the crush of dancers, one thigh in-between Adie’s legs.  Her hands are arcing down Adie’s back now, over her t-shirt, Sera’s long fingers tickling as they slide over ribs.  She grins and moves against Sera, an echo of Sera’s own movements, and then her eyes slide to the side and she stops dead, raises an eyebrow and says, more loudly than she had intended, “Shit.”

 

Adie needn’t have worried;  Cullen hasn’t noticed either her or Sera.  His eyes are closed, hands on the hips of the man in front of him, the other man’s arms around his neck.  Their foreheads are pressed together, lips only a breath apart.  Adie can’t see the other man’s face, but can’t help but feel slightly chagrined - Lily was right, the guy is gorgeous, even from the back.  Momentarily, she feels a little angry, but pushes that thought down, since she chose not to pursue Cullen; she can hardly begrudge him a… whatever it is that he wants.  Sera turns, noting that Adie is distracted, and sees the two men.  They aren’t even dancing, really just standing on the dance floor holding each other.  “Sera, no…” Adie starts, but either Sera really can’t hear her over the music or she is faking.  Adie catches her arm before Sera gets to Cullen and his… whatever that guy is, will be, whatever.  She pulls the smaller woman back to her, leaning down and whispering right in her ear, “He needs to be happy for us to be happy, okay?  Don’t ruin it for him.”

Sera turns back to her, and downright scowls, “Who says I was gonna ruin it?”

Adie smiles nervously and begins to pull Sera away, off the dance floor.  Sera baulks, standing her ground, and yells to Adie, “You gotta live in the world, wivout sneakin’ around, worryin’ you’re gonna upset him!  He’s a big fuckin’ boy, alright?  Makes his own choices, just like you do!”  Adie just stares at her; wondering how did the night got so bad, so fast.  The look on Sera’s face is not angry, or not precisely.  It’s more like hurt, or bewilderment, and Adie suddenly realises that Sera isn’t as confident in their relationship as Adie might have assumed.  “Cookie,” Adie says, knowing Sera can’t hear her; she takes a step toward her, arms out. “Hey…”

“Don’t bother.  I’m goin’ outside.”  Sera marches two paces and then stops, pointing her finger at Adie, yelling over the music, “Don’t follow.”  She pushes through the dancers, leaving Adie standing alone in the middle of them.

===

“May I have one, please?”

Sera looks the man up and down and shrugs, holding out the cigarettes to him with nothing but a bored look.  The man smirks at her, and takes a cigarette between elegant fingers.  Sera pulls out matches, flicks one alight and holds it out for him, cupping the small flame in the cold wind.  She misses her coat; it’s fucking freezing standing out here in nothing but a swimsuit, especially after the heat of the bodies crushed up in Skyhold.  The man puts the lit cigarette between his lips and wordlessly shrugs out of his fawn leather jacket, then holds it out to her.  “Not exactly swimsuit weather,” he says, and then, when she doesn’t move, “Go on, take it.  You’ll freeze your tits off out here in just that.  Favours for favours.”

That earns him a small smile, and Sera takes the jacket.  She wraps it around her shoulders, inhaling the warm waft of expensive cologne, wondering at the understated pale satin lining, and sighs contentedly.  She grins at the man and says, “Thanks, mister.”

“Dorian.  If we’re going to be on sharing terms, we should be sharing our names too.”

Sera raises an eyebrow and tells him her name.  He nods and leans back against the wall, one foot against it.  They smoke in silence for a minute, until Dorian turns to her again and says, “I think… I think I recognise your voice.  Were you fighting with your girlfriend in there?”

Sera sneers, tilting her chin up defiantly and asks, “What’s it to you?”

He shrugs, “Nothing, I suppose.  You were just… very loud, that’s all.  It was definitely you, your voice is... distinctive, to say the least.”

She cackles a little, and says, “Whatever.  Like you could hear anything over the noise!  You’re just giving your tiny mind a treat, mister.”

He raises an eyebrow and snorts through his nose, “Trust me, the thought of you two is in no way a treat to me.”  He sighs and says quietly, “Just wondering, that’s all.  You seemed… kind of sad about it.”

“Yeah?” Sera rounds on him, glaring.  “Well I’m not fuckin’ sad about it, alright?  If she wants to be a fuckin’ primadonna and go all moony over her old boyfriend, then that’s her fuckin’ problem.  I just don’t wanna be along for the ride.”  She sniffs, and adds, more quietly, “Done that drive too many times already.”

Dorian is silent, looking at her.  She glances at him quickly and looks away.  There is a tense set to her shoulders as she raises the cigarette to her lips again, then pitches it away into the gutter.  “I dunno.  I guess I love her and shite like that.  Stupid.”  Her mouth turns down at the corners, and she blinks rapidly then scrunches up her nose. “Stupid me.” She laughs, bitterly, and shoots him an apologetic look, “Dunno why I’m tellin’ you all this.  Sorry… Dorian, was it?”

He nods, and flicks his cigarette into the gutter, still half unsmoked.  “Come on.  Let’s go back in.  I guess my… er… the guy I came here with,” he is suddenly shifty, and Sera cocks her head a little, but for once in her life holds her tongue, “will be wondering where I got to.  At least,” and he grins, a little coyly, “I hope so.  Wouldn’t want to be forgettable.”

“Oh, I dunno Dors.  You’re pretty average.”  He notes her sudden upswing in mood, and the truly horrid shortening of his first name, but smirks at her anyway.  She takes the jacket off her shoulders and hands it back to him; he takes it from her with a small smile.  As she begins to follow him back into the club, she looks at him, really looks at him, and her minds eye shows her Dorian and Cullen, standing on the dance floor a heartbeat away from a kiss.  “Ah,” she says and stops dead.  “Hey.”  He turns around, eyebrows raised, to see her standing with her hands on her hips, gooseflesh over her arms, fair bristling with annoyance, “Cully-Wully didn’t send ya out here, did he?”

“Who?”

“Cullen, you tosser.  You wanna get in his pants, you’re gonna need more’n deft hands ‘n’ fine tools, pal.”  She spits on the ground and tells him, “Patchin’ up me ‘n’ Adie ain’t gonna be your in.”

“Who… Adie?  Patching… what?  And what is all this about deft hands..?”  

Sera growls low in her throat.  Partly it is to save face - Dorian clearly has no idea at all what she’s talking about - but part of it is frustration.  She doesn’t want to be the bad guy here.  But unless she can accept that Adie and Cullen were a thing, and move past it, then she’s going to be, she knows it.  So she takes a deep breath, purposefully rolling her shoulders around in their sockets and flips on her smile again.  Dorian looks alarmed, so it’s probably not the greatest looking smile in the world, but fuck it, she thinks, and sashays past him, calling over her shoulder, “Thought we were going inside?”

 

Dorian trails after her, into the bass-split blackness.  What light there is seems drawn to Sera’s swimsuit, and it provides a beacon for him to follow as he watches her change from antagonistic brat to party girl; her arms are up almost as soon as they are inside, her head is down and bobbing in time with the music, hips twisting.  He snorts a little through his nose and swerves to the left to check his coat again.

 

===

 

Adie turns to watch Sera pushing past the other dancers.  She takes a step towards her, wanting to follow despite Sera’s instruction not to, and then swallows and turns back, not knowing what to do with herself.  Without thinking, she has turned back in the direction of Cullen, and as she sighs, she sees him looking at her with something like concern in his eyes.  She shakes her head at him, but it is too late; already he’s whispering in the other man’s ear.  The man nods and pulls back, tilting his head as if to ask a question, then leans forward and whispers something to Cullen.  Cullen half-smiles at him and weirdly, makes a small bow.  The other man laughs and turns, looking quickly at Adie and then hurries away.  Cullen waves her over, and then turns, leaving the dance floor in the other direction.  Adie follows.

 

She follows his broad back, the blond of his hair making him a little easier to see in the darkness.  He turns when he reaches the far wall, and beckons her to a door.  “Ink! In here!” he yells, and opens it, revealing a tiny, deserted room.  There are no chairs, just a lone, bare mattress on the floor, but when Cullen closes the door behind them, most of the din is drowned out.  “Thought we might need to talk,” he says, and then just looks at her like he doesn’t know what to say.  Adie is silent too, emotions warring within her; she still likes Cullen, at least as a friend, but then he’s not exactly been honest with her, and then there is this new guy, and she knows she shouldn’t be jealous, that she should have moved on but… She sighs, and says, “Cullen, I’m sorry about Sera…”

“Sera?  Why?”

“Well, it… kinda looked like you guys were having a moment…”

He grins and says, “Yeah, well… there’ll be time for more moments.  I hope.”  Then he looks at her challengingly and says, “It was more you I wanted to talk about.”

Adie is silent, so Cullen continues, “Cass was saying you went a bit… weird.  When she told you about… me coming off lyrium.”

She folds her arms across her chest, and huffs out a breath.  Cullen just looks at her though, and so she says begrudgingly, “Yeah.  Well.  I just… thought you would have told me, that’s all.”

“Can you understand why I didn’t?”  He waits for an answer, and when there is nothing forthcoming, says, “I don’t go around laying my feelings out like a hand of cards, you know.  I don’t do that for just anyone.  So when I was at my worst, and Sera flipped a hip at you and you said, essentially, ‘Thanks Cullen, but despite every indication I’ve given you, this girl over here wants to jump my bones, so I’m out’,” he snorts and shakes his head, “How could you expect that I’d tell you anything else about me and what I was going through?”

Adie looks at him, in shock and rising fury; though the fury is mostly directed at herself.  She splutters, “It’s still… that’s not…”  And then she slumps and unfolds her arms, rubbing both hands over her face.  “Yeah, okay.  It was a shitty thing to do.  But Cullen, you have to understand, it really wasn’t like that. Really and truly, it wasn’t anything that either of you said or did.”  She sighs, finally looking at him, “I can’t sugarcoat this, hon.  With you, I felt like everything was duty, it was all Ink and no Adie, you know?  Duty has it’s place, and I’d never shirk it, you know that.  But, fuck sakes,” she smiles rather grimly at him and says, “I want to live too, you know.  Life’s more than duty.”

“You think I don’t know that?” He scowls at her and shakes his head again, “You don’t know me at all, do you?  Is that all you think I want?  Duty?”

“No, Cullen, no…”  Adie takes a step forward, her hands held up, “I’m so sorry.  What I meant… oh, shit… look, you know I have no talent for this.  Are we… are we so broken that we can’t even…”  There is a sudden lump in her throat and she swallows, desperately trying to clear it, “we can’t even be friends?”

He sighs and looks down, then up at her again.  “Maybe,” he mumbles, “but… maybe it’s better if we don’t.”  He shakes his head. “I don’t know.  Give us some time, okay?”

She just nods, bleakly, and he turns his back on her and opens the door, then he leaves, out into the thump of bass.

 

===

 

Sera is dancing with all the appearance of enthusiasm, but she is tiring, wanting the night to be over, wanting Adie’s body curled around hers in their bed.  She juts her jaw forward, kicks her feet a little higher and tries to dance thought away.  And although she keeps dancing, as soon as she sees Adie standing on the periphery, she makes a beeline for her, shouldering through the dancers.  Adie looks like she’s been crying, at least a little, but when she sees Sera, a huge beaming smile lights up her features, and she almost runs toward Sera, arms out-streched.  Sera grins back, allows Adie to pick her up, wrapping her legs around the other woman’s hips, and Adie whispers in her ear, “Can I take you home now, Cookie?”

Sera smiles at her and nods.

 

Driving back through the awakening city, away from Skyhold, and dawn is breaking.  Between the buildings the early morning light thumps in bands of gold.  Adie looks over from the drivers seat, and sees Sera looking at her and smiling slightly.  A beam of light catches her from behind, turning her hair to fire, casting her face in shadow. Adie reaches out a hand, brushes Sera’s cheek quickly before returning it to the steering wheel.  They say nothing for a few minutes, then Sera murmurs something, and Adie turns to look at her again.  She is asleep.

 


End file.
